My husband and I live well within our means in a very expensive city. We save what we can in his 401(k) and my Roth IRA. We have some accessible savings in our credit union, however we are not really saving much. We have prioritized world travel as our luxury. We are able to do this in an affordable way, considering the luxury, by often attaching our adventures to his work trips or relying on the kindness of friends who live or own abroad. The cost of the trips pale in comparison to the cost of things like raising a child (or two), or owning things! Would you say it's worth investing in our lives right now when a couple of thousand dollars allows us to see the world, or put all that money away (somewhere!) to help out a little in the future? To add, we will hopefully make more money in the future. Thanks!

Bloomberg Businessweek looked at Sallie Mae’s “How America Pays for College” annual report and saw this bit of information showing that kids coming from families earning more than $100,000 a year receive more in scholarship money than kids coming from families earning less than $35,000 a year.

A year and a bit after I jumped into the freelance pool, I found myself on an airplane headed for San Francisco, where I stayed for 29 amazing days without putting any of it on credit. This is how I did it.

I found your piece on NYC rents, and the exorbitant amounts we spend on them really interesting. It's an issue I fret about, too. What's a good rule of thumb? Should we spend 1/4 of our income? One-third? — David

Do I need long term insurance coverage? Should I get a new plan once I have my finances in order? Also I've heard that some of them are semi-scams that don't cover much or have restrictions on what they will cover. At this point it kind of seems crazy to put so much money into something that I may not use for 40 years or more. But then on the other hand I guess I could get in a car accident and be paralyzed tomorrow? — S.L.